Callie POV

February 10th

I was walking down the street, when a car pulled up by the road next to me. The passenger side window rolled down. I didn't have to look at the car, to knew to whom it belonged or who was driving it. The car dove slowly by the side of the road next to me as I continued walk down the sidewalk.

"Callie, I'm sorry!" Amy said from the car

"Whatever," I mumbled back, placing my hands in my hoodie front pocket. I doubt Amy heard what I said, because I was on the street, but she was sitting in her car. The sound from the street, cars, wind, other people walking by me muffled my voice.

"Callie, please get in the car!" Amy pleaded "Please!"

I kept walking, but this time, I glanced to the car. Amy was looking at me from the car. Her attention was divided between me on the side of the street and street in front of her, to make sure she doesn't run into anything.

"Callie, you can be mad at me, but can you, please, get in the car-" I heard Amy said, right before I got off the sidewalk and turned to walk across the park, that I had been walking next to for the last two blocks or so

"Callie!" Amy shouted after me from her car. I heard her car stop. Doors opened and were slammed close the next second.

"Callie!? Where the hell are you going?" Amy called after me from the street. Briefly, I looked over my shoulder. Amy's car was parked by the side of the street, but Amy herself was walking after me. She was some 20 steps behind me. I returned my attention back front. With my head down, I continued to walk through the park.

"Can you please just stop and talk to me?" After a small pause she added "Or yell! You can yell at me! I would deserve that!"

"I know I screwed up! I'm not denying that!" Amy called, when I was just few steps away from some path that leads through the park. Some older couple, who were walking on the path, both looked at me and then Amy. I could tell by their looks, they got very curious as to why Amy was calling that at me. But still, I kept walking, not wanting to talk Amy at the moment, because I was angry with her.

"Could you walk a bit slower please!" Amy asked after some minute of following me in silence. I frowned up my face and glanced over my shoulder to her at the strange request. Amy gestured to her feet and explained "I'm wearing flip-flops! And the left one is rubbing my foot the wrong way...it really starts to hurt!" I saw her wince in pain as she took another step

I stop walking and turn around to face her.

"Oh, thank god," Amy breathed out relieved as she stopped walking and took off her left flip-flop. She winced in pain a little bit as she wiggled her fingers. Amy held the flip-flop in her hand and cursed "I hate these fucking things!" She bent down and looked to the chafe between her first two toes

When she finally averted her attention to me, she let her hands fall down to her side "Callie, I'm sorry!"

"Are you? Really?" I questioned back, crossing my arms on my chest and staring down at her

"Yes. Of course I am!" Amy replied instantly as she took a step closer to me "I'm truly sorry about what I did!"

"May I ask you a question?" I uncrossed my arms to appear more friendlier and less angry with her, while on the inside I was still furious with her

"Anything," Amy replied on the spot

"Did you ever forget to pick up Markus from his after-class activity?" I asked bluntly. Amy's mouth parted a little. The look in her eyes was a mix of shock and hurt.

"Did you ever make him wait over an hour for you to pick him up?" Amy bit her lower lip and tilted her head down remoursfully, avoiding my look. The only reason I didn't walk home on my own, was because I wanted to see how long it too for Amy to rememeber about me or even is she remembered about me at all. Maybe it was a little bit harsh to bring Markus in this, but I didn't really have any other choice. I had no else to compare it to.

"That's what I thought!" I said harshly, crossing my arms back on my chest

"I don't know what to tell you," Amy spoke in a hushed voice, still keeping her eyes down "I feel terrible about it. I do! What happened today - it's inexcusable!" She shook her head slowly "I'm...I don't know what happened. I was cleaning the house, when I came across these old videos of Markus from his childhood,"

I uncrossed my arms, my features softened as I continued to listen to Amy

She took a deep breath in and continued "I started watching them. There were vidoes of him just being a baby. Video of Aaron rocking him in his arms as he lullabied him to sleep. Markus first steps. Aaron teaching him to ride a bike. Us teaching him how to swim. First school day, first football game. Christmas and birthdays, and Halloween, New year..."

Amy finally looked up to me "I lost track of time! I know that's not an excuse about what I did! But it's what happened. I was watching these videos and I thought that I still had time till I have to pick you up. I didn't forget you, okay? I didn't!" Amy exhaled deeply. Seemed like she wasn't done talking, she was just preparing to continue

"I know that I let you down, I know that I screwed up - big time!" Amy said with tears in her eyes, she gesutred to me "I'm suppose to be taking care of you, but right now - I'm doing pretty shitty job about it! I know, you are mad at me about today. I get that. You have every right to be angry with me. To be honest, I'm mad at myself as well. Disappointed even." Amy took a small step towards me "But I promise you, Callie - I'm going to do better!I'm going to do better!"

I could tell that Amy felt really bad about what she had done. And I believed her, when she said that she will do better. Everything that she said seemed genuine and sincere.

"Okay," I said back shifting my weight to my other leg

"Can you forgive me?" She asked me next. I nodded my head back. Amy looked relieved after my head nod.

Amy briefly looked down, before she offered "Would you like some ice cream?"

"Ice cream?" I raised my eyebrow at her. Was she really trying to make up to me by buying ice cream?

"Yeah," Amy replied and pointed somewhere to the right side of the park "There's an ice cream stand right over there and I thought that," I turned to look at where she was pointing "I don't know, I thought, maybe, you would like an ice cream?"

"Before dinner?"

"Well, it could still be some time before dinner, because I haven't made anything. But I will, once we get home. It will take some time till I make something up, so..." Amy shrugged her shoulders and glanced to the ice cream stand "Do you wanna?"

"Yeah, sure," I replied, not being able to say no to ice-cream. Amy jumped on her left feet, while she took off her other flip-flop. Once she was barefoot, we started walking towards the ice cream stand. Amy was carrying her flip-flops in her left.

"What flavor do you want?" She asked pulling her wallet out of her back pocket

"I don't know," I shrugged, when we walked up the stand

"Hello, ladies!" the sales-clerk smiled at us us "What can I get you?"

Amy turned to me and waited for me to tell the guy behind the counter.

"Uhm..." I dragged not sure what to say, scanning with my eyes the choices. I glanced to Amy desperate, when I realized I had no clue, what to get or what I wanted.

"Two vanilla, please," Amy said handing the money to the guy

"Coming right up," the guy handed back change to Amy and then worked fast to get our ice creams

Once we got our ice cream cones, Amy nodded towards the bench "Let's go take a seat," I took one quick lick of the ice-cream before we walked towards the bench

When we sat down, we didn't speak for a while. Amy was sitting at my right side. I had taken off my backpack and placed it on my lap, so I could lean back at the bench backrest. We enjoyed our ice creams, enjoyed the view and each others company.

"How was school?" Amy asked before taking another take on her ice cream

I took few licks of my ice cream "Fine," I said not knowing what else to tell her. School was school, you know. Boring.

"How did you do on your physics test?" She asked next. I glanced to her, surprised that she remembered that. Not knowing how to explain it to her, I shrugged my shoulders and looked out to the distance.

"I'm sure you give me a bit more information than a shrug?" Amy coaxed

"I don't know what to tell you," I replied looking at her

"How many tasks did you have on the test?" She asked before taking a small bite of her ice cream

"Five," I said but a second later I corrected my self "No, six!"

"How many did you finish?"

"Five. I didn't have enough time for the last one," I elaborated my answer a little this time

"How do you feel you did the on the five?"

"First one seemed to be too easy," I said thinking back to it "I probably screwed up something," I wondered out loud

"What was it about?"

"It was similar to the one you helped me with on Monday right before your mom called us to dinner,"

"Did you put the velocity in square?" She asked, remembering my struggle with the task

"I think I did," I said, but now that I thought back to it, I was no longer sure "I hope I did," I added a moment later in a hushed voice, scared that I had forgotten about that

"What about the rest?"

"I'm pretty sure I mixed up the formula in the fifth one. At fourth I scribbled so much, I don't think the teacher will be able to read what I wrote. The third one was tricky, because we weren't given the unit of measures in the form we had to use them. So we had to make transformations , before I could put the numbers in the formula. And in the second we had to transform the formula we used in the first one. We knew the velocity and the kinetic energy and had to calculate the mass. I think I transformed the formula correctly. The answer seemed acceptable,"

Once I was finished with my ramble, I looked to Amy scared of her reaction. I had never talked so much. Suddenly, I felt like I was exposed or shared too much. Never before, had I elaborated that much about a question I was asked. Basically I told Amy every little detail about my big test.

Amy took the ice cream cone in her right hand and patted my knee with her left "I'm sure you will do fine honey! Try not to worry about it, okay?"

"You think so?"

"You studied very hard for this, Callie. There is no doubt in my mind - you will pass it!" Amy replied with certainty in her voice. She raised up her left arm.

"I think it's about time we go home," She said looking at the watch around her wrist "Come on, let's go," She patted my knee as she stood up. She took her flip-flops put them under her left arm. Before I could stand up, Amy grabbed my backpack from my lap and tossed it over her shoulder.

Eating my ice cream I started to follow Amy to the car.

February 15th

I was sitting at my desk, watching how the teacher walked around the class and handed out our tests. He had just given the test back to the girl that sat in front of me. There was a big, fat A+ written and circled around at the top right corner of her test in red ink. When the teacher walked to the isle on the other side of my desk, the girl leaned to show the grade to her friend, who sat by her right.

I felt envy. I wished I was as smart as the girl. She pretty much aces every tests she does. After the test I heard her tell her friends that she didn't even study for the test. Yet she still got an A+. Basically she gets A+ in all of the subjects. She doesn't put in any effort at all and gets good grades, but I can study all night and still fail. It didn't seem fair.

Sudenlly, the teacher was stadning next to my table. I looked up to him and swallowed hard. my heart started to beat fast. His facial expression didn't give away any indication as to how I did. The most likely scenario - he will tell me that I failed, misserably. It wouldn't surprise me if he told me that I got the worst grade in the class.

"I was nicely surprised Callie!" The teacher said before he handed me my test. With shaky hand I reached up for the paper. He smiled at me, before he walked away.

I was scared to look at the grade. But once my eyes landed on the circled mark on the top of the right corner, my mouth dropped in surprise. I looked up to my teacher again, who was now at the top of the class. I wanted to ask him, if this was real, because it certainly didn't feel like it. To make sure I didn't imagine this, I looked back at the paper in my hand. A huge smile grew on my lips, when I saw the same mark I did before.

~o~o~o~

When I walked out of the school, I scanned the area, looking for Amy's car. I saw her car parked in the school parking lot. I hopped in the passanger seat and placed my backpack in my lap. Amy turned the volume of the radio down, once I closed the car doors.

"Hey!" Amy greeted me casually

"Hey," I said back pulling my seat belt over. Once it was secure, Amy drove out.

"So, how was school, pumpkin?" Amy asked once we had driven out of the school parking lot

"Good,"

"Good?" Amy repeated what I had just said, soudning surprised "Wow, that's a first," she commented quietly most to herself, I assume "What was good about it?" Amy asked, trying to get me to tell about it

"We got our tests back," I said warily

"And?" She briefly glanced to be "How did you do?"

I didn't reply instantly, because I was a little bit scared of her reaction "C+" This was the best grade I have ever gotten in physiscs. It was a huge step from my D- from the homeworks and lab tests.

"You got a C+!?" Amy asked out, making sure she heard right. I nodded my head back. "That's so amazing, Callie! I'm proud of you!"

"You are?" I asked surpirsed while I fiddleled the end of the strap of my backback in between my fingers

"Yes, of course I am. You studied so hard for this!" Amy replied putting a smile on my lips "Hey, so...what would you say, if we ordered pizza today for supper? To celebrate!" she suggested a moment later

"Really?" I asked excited about the idea

"I take it, that was a yes?" Amy asked glancing to me, her eyebrow was raised up a little bit. I nodded my head back vigorously.

Amy POV

In about 10 minutes we were back at the house. When we go inside the house, Callie and I walked in the kitchen. She sat at the kitchen table, while I walked over to one of the kitchen counters and pulled open a drawer. I took a menu from one of the pizza places.

"Here you go," I handed the menu to Callie and sat down at the oppsite side of the table

"Have you decided?" I asked her after she had been looking at the menu for few minutes

"I can't decide," Callie replied placing the menu on the table, so I could see it as well

"Between which?" I asked, leaing a bit more on the table, so I could see better

"This...and this one," Callie pointed to the menu "Which one will you take?" Callie asked me, when she raised her head up

"The usual," I replied and put my finger to the menu

"Hmm," Callie hummed back as she examined the one I had pointed to "Can I try this one?" She asked pointing to the one with mushrooms

"Sure you can. You can get whichever you want,"

"I will take the one with mushrooms, then!" Callie stuck with her choice

"Okay, then I'm going to order-" my sentece was cut short by a door bell. I looked up from the phone in my hand to the hallway. Callie was looking to the hallway as well. We weren't expecting anyone.

I placed the phone down "I'll be right back,"

When I opened the doors, I was met by a woman. She looked to be around her late 30. The woman had a black leather folder in her hand. Her outfit and appearance screamed - government worker - to me. She was wearing a light gray suit and her hair was taken in a bun.

"Can I help you?" I asked the woman

"Hi. Sydney Fields," the woman said extending her arm to me. When I shook her hand, she added "Social worker with the CPS,"